Chas enjoys nesting. He would remove this Plumeria if he could, that he might better fit into this pot. Other vessels are emptied and sat in: boxes of Matchbox cars, sit-atop dumptruck buckets, frisbees, booster seats, magazines, wrapping paper, board game boxes…

I am returning to painting and using Ford’s art supplies when he isn’t looking. Thinking of Hamilton Pool, where we immersed on Sunday when it was 107 degrees outside.

Chas enjoys nesting. He would remove this Plumeria if he could, that he might better fit into this pot. Other vessels are emptied and sat in: boxes of Matchbox cars, sit-atop dumptruck buckets, frisbees, booster seats, magazines, wrapping paper, board game boxes…

I am returning to painting and using Ford’s art supplies when he isn’t looking. Thinking of Hamilton Pool, where we immersed on Sunday when it was 107 degrees outside.

A picture of Ford and I at a private beach in Rhode Island, summer of 2002. We had fun arranging and eating large round rocks. Aside from the cheesy Hallmark symbolism (you know, time slipping through our fingers yeah yeah yeah), I like this picture because if the Mork reference. Naa noo Naa noo, I wore jeans with rainbow suspenders in third grade. No, really, I did.

Ford officially turned four tonight at 8:11pm. Which means that tonight is also the fourth anniversary of Star Trek Enterprise. I am somewhat embarrassed to say I was actually watching the show’s premier during active labor. How luxurious! compared to the Holy Visceral UnMedicated Shriekfest of Chas’ birth.

Today is dry and baking hot outside. We have had five consecutive months of heat. While this may sound like nearly half a year, it feels like it has been a mere two months because there is no other way (correction: no cheaper way) to endure the heat than to deny it. See? Isn’t heat FUN?!
update: according to the nightly news, the temperature outside today was 108 degrees Farenheit.

Today is dry and baking hot outside. We have had five consecutive months of heat. While this may sound like nearly half a year, it feels like it has been a mere two months because there is no other way (correction: no cheaper way) to endure the heat than to deny it. See? Isn’t heat FUN?!
update: according to the nightly news, the temperature outside today was 108 degrees Farenheit.

Today is dry and baking hot outside. We have had five consecutive months of heat. While this may sound like nearly half a year, it feels like it has been a mere two months because there is no other way (correction: no cheaper way) to endure the heat than to deny it. See? Isn’t heat FUN?!
update: according to the nightly news, the temperature outside today was 108 degrees Farenheit.

Every night the past three days, as I’ve read Reeve Lindbergh’s book (beautifully illustrated by Jill McElmurry) entitled Our Nest, I’ve reflected on our health and good fortune to have each other and a home to return to each day, when we are tired and weary.
I don’t know if this blog entry will reach many people, but if you read this and have three to five hours of free time this month, I have found a wonderful way to share some skill and love with the evacuees and their children, who have very little “nest” to speak of. It’s a project called The Linus Connection and the mission is to “provide a handmade security blanket to every child who is in a crisis or at-risk situation in Central Texas.” If we are able to meet the basic needs of the evacuees, I think this would be a loving addition to the effort to help mend lives and offer warmth.

Austin’s News 8 featured this initiative a while back. To describe one benefit of the mission, founder Stephanie Sabatini offers:
“What we’re trying to do is provide security. This is something handmade that the kids know that people in the community are thinking about them, hoping for them and hoping that their lives get better perhaps than they have in the past.”

I love this bug jar block quilt. A six year-old friend of ours received one of these himself, as a gift. It’s adorable, just like this one:

Today was Ford’s blue+green+robot+fish+Fourth Birthday Party. All of the pre-party freaking out was worth the post-party glow, as you can see:

Oh, I was fit to be tied until the guests actually arrived. From there, it was, well cake. But even the cake-decorating stressed me out.

However, it was a success, measured in burps.

And blurs.

These colors work very well with pink construction paper. It is my new sketching combination. My hands are beginning to age.

Today was Museum Day in Austin, when all the museums are open to the public, free of charge. Most of them also hosted fun kid-centric activities, like making seed balls and collages at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Because it was noon, and white hot outside, we decided to head on over for some masochistic martyrdom at the Wildfower Center, where we could either bake to death outside in the beautifully landscaped terrace or pressure cook till our eyes popped out in the Little House, aka Little Barely-Air-Conditioned Room Where the Children Hang. So we decided to share the best of both worlds, and I took Ford to the House while Damon and Chas kicked back in the brick oven.

Lois Ehlert is in town, and while she was signing her picture books that we left at home, Ford and I made Leaf Man-inspired collages:

While working on them, I paused to take a break and admire all the children at work on their collages. Ford had squirted huge silver dollar-sized dabs of Elmer’s glue onto his paper and stuck, very gingerly atop it, thin strands of dried grasses. It was so cute. An eight year-old across the table scanned this and then looked at me, scrunching up her face, and asked “Why did he use such a big glob of glue?” Before answering, I smiled, immediately thinking of the way Ford and I laugh together at Chas’ “mistakes” all of the time, and the way he in so many words, asks the same of Chas when he makes a “mess.”
“Oh, Chas! What are you doing?” Ford will say, and laugh in a very infectious way.